


The Sickness of a Rose

by BlueMoonHound



Series: Finals ficlets series [5]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt, Impostor Syndrome, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, almost comfort, but it doesnt really warrant that tag, identity crisis, post pink diamonds shattering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: It feels like the start of the end of the world. It feels like she's trapped, even though she put herself here.
Relationships: Garnet & Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Pearl & Pink Diamond (Steven Universe), Pearl & Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Series: Finals ficlets series [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1205854
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	The Sickness of a Rose

**Author's Note:**

> why arent there more PD angst fics i am going to fix this

She reforms alone.

Not even Pearl is there.

She falls in the water around the edges of the armory cave, her dress instantly soaked with it, and she doesn’t even bother to stand. She doesn’t bother to move.

Rose.

She’s just rose now.

Pink-- Rose-- feels like a baby bird. She drags herself to shaky, newly-forced legs, and immediately stumbles. She’s spent years at a time in this form, but it’s different now, as her default. She feels so much smaller than she’s ever felt, despite knowing she could always shapeshift to be big again. And she has felt small. So small. So small in White’s hands, so small next to Blue in the pool.

She didn’t even get to say goodbye to them.

How could she?

She feels guilty. A heavy sick feeling in her throat, clawing at her empty body. Her final form, and its so small and weak, so worthless. Her final form is supposed to be compassion, but she feels like a fraud.

It’s fine. It’s time to go back to their base, reassure everyone there. She’s alive, she’s well, no one caught her, Pink Diamond is dead. They could be celebrating. They might as well be.

She thinks of Bismuth. What a long run she took, to follow her advice in the end.

She thinks of Pearl.

Garnet. Biggs. Little Larimar.

She lies to everyone. She lies and then she lies some more. And the only way to solve it is always to lie again.

The fort is quiet when she arrives. Empty, save for a single form – Two gems, sitting alone in the corner. Legs criss-crossed, hands pressed against her ankles.

“Garnet,” Rose greets.

“Rose,” Garnet returns. “It’s done.”

Rose looks down, to the side. The enormous, semiforeign curls of her hair block her vision at the edges in a way her Diamond hair never did. Does. Did.

“Yes,” Rose says.

“Are we going to shatter all of them?” Garnet asks.

Rose looks at her hands. She’s pressing her thumb into her ruby. Clean and unbroken. She knew what Blue threatened her with, she knows that Garnet would never want to shatter.

“Of course not,” Rose says. She can understand Garnet being upset. She actually welcomes it, since Pearl would never be upset with her. She can understand the sensation of Sapphire running her thumb across Ruby’s solid facets. It’s like when she pulls Pearl close, closes her eyes. Runs a thumb along her cheek. At least Sapphire must not feel any guilt for that. At least, Sapphire is not the one who does the breaking. She is a sapphire. Shattering is a Diamond’s job.

Pearl is always so confused.

At least Ruby knows why.

“Where is Pearl?” Rose asks. She can’t stop herself from crying, but she can stop herself from sobbing. For now.

“Fighting,” Garnet says. “This battle will be over soon, though. It’s the last of her court, almost all of them will be poofed, the rest will run. They didn’t need me.”

Rose nods.

“I’m surprised you weren’t there.”

“I was poofed,” Rose says. It doesn’t make sense to lie. “Pearl took me somewhere safe.”

Garnet adjusts her visor.

Rose pushes past the curtain of the tent around the warp pad. “I’ll see you later,” she says.

Garnet just grunts.

She has her own tent. It’s at the back of the camp, tucked away. She shuts the door and ties the straps closed, sitting on the floor with a thud and leaning against the table.

Guilty.

She buries her face in her hands.

She should be out there. There is a war to win, after all. She feels small and frail, trapped in the yawning void of her own mind. She knows that she will forever be held accountable for a terrible, indescribable war crime that she never even committed. She shattered a diamond. She should have thought about that a little harder, before, but she wanted to be done.

Nothing had even happened.

A look on Garnet’s face, a realization, and she cracks.

Shattered, literally, into a different gem, a life left behind. A kind of death.

In a way, she killed Pearl, too. But Pearl always gets to be Pearl. She doesn’t have to pretend, for the next eon, to be what she is not. Rose doesn’t think anyone can be limited by her gemtype, but that doesn’t mean she feels a lack in abandoning it. She is a literal traitor to her type itself. She’s an impostor among Quartzes. They deserve better than a Diamond.

Her hair is still soft. She has so much more of it, now. It’s like a big, comforting blanket, and she curls up in it. At least something is better. However small. She lets her body hitch with sobs, as quietly as she can.

“Rose?”

Pearl.

Rose covers her face in her hands. She’s reminded, suddenly, of the last time Pearl had found her sobbing, curled in front of her throne back on homeworld. She shudders involuntarily.

“I-I’m sorry. This was a bad idea.”

Rose sits up like she’s been shocked. Her hair catches in her hand, and she falls down again. She should be used to this form. She’s been using it for thousands of years now. Regularly. It’s her _default_. Why is everything so hard, right now?

Pearl looks at her with big blue eyes. So lithe and gentle, so much more than the clumsiest, scrappiest Diamond. Her long fingers are against Rose’s cheek now, brushing away a tear. Rose pulls her close.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she whispers to her. She pushes her emotions down, down to the pit where they belong, and locks them there.

“Rose,” she says again.

Rose just holds her tight.


End file.
